* "Songwriter of the Year" and
CARAS awards in Folk/Bluegrass categories.

* Host of "BC Music Project"
music video show, featuring BC artists from five cities and towns, a show that went on to win a Gold Ribbon Talent
Development Award.

*Lead role on "The
Beachcombers", minor roles in 2 movie features.

* CBC simulcast (TV w/ Radio 2
stereo),the TV special "Folksinger Deluxe with a
Side of Fries".

* Invested as a member of the Order of Canada in July 2012

*Valdy has toured, and still
does tour, in America, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Germany,
Holland, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. Valdy is an
oft-invited performer at the Kerrville Folk Festival in
Texas.

It was late summer in Ottawa, 1945, at the Civic Hospital on Carling Ave.,
way out on the edge of town in those days, across from the federal Experimental Farm.

On the morning of September 1, leaves were still green, school supplies were being organized,
and Lillian Horsdal gave birth to a boy, yours truly, Paul Valdemar Horsdal (the son).

Dad left Denmark twice, first to study photography in Germany, and a second time
to see the world, through his eyes and his lenses. The tradition in Denmark is to
remake the son’s surname by adding a ”-sen” to the father’s first name, hence Jensen, etc.

In the new world, specifically the Ottawa valley in the forties, consistency of family names
was the norm, so Dad gave me his, Paul Valdemar Horsdal (the father). He already had dibs
on Paul, his portrait photography studio having been Paul Horsdal Portraits since the mid-twenties,
so I by default was Valdemar, which has been shortened to Valdy, pronounced voll-dee.

Kathleen and I have been married now for thirty-one years. We have children, step-children,
grand-children and pets. We love each other deeply, despite ourselves.
I am grateful and fortunate for her place in our lives.

I am a touring entertainer/singer/songwriter/folksinger/guitarist/bassist/arranger;
choose which you prefer. As a folksinger, I have access to ALL styles and genres
of music and song, and I make use of many. With every set of tunes,
I attempt to sing and play and connect well with whomever chooses to be in earshot.

I am sure that learning is the key to living. Educating the geezer brain is paramount
to my success. If I accept a level of skill, and use that skill as is for life,
I am missing some rich opportunities.

Growth of knowledge, and learning a means of applying that knowledge, abet not only my life,
but keep my brain churning away, possibly even firing up neuron paths that are dulled
or yet unused, hence my desire to build a seniors’ boarding school as an exit ramp.

This is an auto-bio I suppose,
written on a chill morning on Saltspring Island, BC,
on Tue., Oct. 10, 2017.

"I've been lucky," Valdy
suggests, when asked about his career's longevity. "I've
worked with some amazing people, players, innovative
producers, great songwriters." He pauses, pulls his
whitening beard. "And I married the right woman."

Another pause, then "Is that
luck? Or is that moving at God's speed? I mean, it's more
than strategy that puts these folks along my path. Sure I'm
good at what I do, and I'm getting better, I'm paying
attention, and I'm learning, but I've lived a charmed life,
with a supportive partner, a glorious daughter, two vibrant
sons, my health in tact; I am a really lucky
man."

-------------------------------------------------------

LONG

"I've been lucky," Valdy
suggests, (born Paul Valdemar Horsdal in September of
1945 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, an inner city kid, mother
Lillian, social worker / psychiatric nurse who ran condoms
into Quebec as a family planning advocate, and Paul Horsdal,
portrait photographer/outdoorsman who became a mentor to
many of Canada's photographers, including Yosef Karsh, who
having asked Paul how he took such great pictures, was told
"I take a lot of pictures," and left with an used Graflex 5
by 7 that Paul received $500 for six months later.
Parliament Hill was nearby, and Valdy's father had Prime
Ministers' and Mayors' portraits on display), when asked
about his career's longevity (38 years of recording and
performing, with tours in Mexico, Spain, Holland, Denmark,
Germany, Poland, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, and
annually Atlantic Ocean to Pacific Ocean from Nunuvit to
Texas). "I've worked with some amazing people,
players, (like Norm MacPherson, session/touring
guitarist with Skylark, Sample Stearns Band, Connie Kaldor;
Jerry Scheff and Ronnie Tutt from Elvis' band; Larry
Carlton; Ben Benay; Nicky Hopkins; Jay Dee Manus; Jim
Keltner; Gerry Adolphe; Kat Hendrikse; Michael Creber; Doug
Edwards; Connie Lebeau; George Koller, session/touring
bassist with Holly Cole, Joe Sealy, Shuffle Demons, Loreena
McKinnett), innovative producers, (like Claire
Lawrence, resulting in 3 of his 4 gold records; Eliot Mazer,
who's worked with Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young; Paul
Rothchild, who's recorded Bonnie Raitt, the Doors; Rob
Bryanton; Bill Henderson; Dan Donahue), great
songwriters." (like Bob Ruzicka, Lynn Miles, Ron Hynes,
Jon Ims, Graham Shaw, Tom Paxton, Mike Williams). He
pauses, pulls his whitening beard. (Valdy will turn 65
on 01/09/10(Sept. 1, 2010)) "And I married the right
woman." (Kathleen Mary Fraser Horsdal, Valdy's creative
advisor and wife of 22 years, sharing a lake front home with
him, 3 dogs and a cat, on Saltspring Island off Canada's
west coast, although they both have their own studio/work
spaces ).

Another pause, then "Is
that luck? Or is that moving at God's speed? ("Valdy
elicited a genuinely warm standing ovation, the real kind,
where the audience continues long after the encore is
assured" - Winnipeg Free Press) "I mean, it's more than
strategy that puts these folks along my path." ("Few
performers are capable of achieving the kind of energy Valdy
generates on stage" - Mcleans) "Sure I'm good at what I
do, and I'm getting better, I'm paying attention, and I'm
learning," (two Juno Awards, SOCAN's Song of the Year
Award, four gold records, sixteen CDs/albums/8-tracks),
"but I have lived a charmed life, (200 gigs a year,
fundraising and advocacy for Literacy, president of Acoustic
Connection, producer, wood butcher), with a supportive
partner (Kathleen Horsdal, artist, hospice counsellor,
soul-mate), a glorious daughter, (Chelah Phoebe
Horsdal, actor, www.chelah.com),
two vibrant sons, (Theo Koumontaros Horsdal, IT buyer
for a major Western Canadian retail chain, and Yani Horsdal
Christie, music-variety promoter with Upstream Entertainment
as well as paint contractor),; I am a really lucky
man."

Of course, introductions are
unnecessary - these two guys have known each other far too
long for any kind of formality. Now, with their first album
together, Contenders, on the leading Canadian roots music
record label, Stony Plain, and with a national tour
underway, they make the most logical duo in Canadian
music.

Consider, if you will, what
they share. They're both family men. They both live on small
islands off the coast of British Columbia. They are both
singer-songwriters with an eye for memorable tunes and
finely-honed images. They're both road warriors who tour,
and tour, and tour.

They are also both committed
Canadians, more particularly, committed Western Canadians.
And their music draws on all the aspects of life in the
west. "Western roots" they call it. It's music that, in
every note, echoes the mountains and the sea, the cowboys
and the fishermen, the oil well roustabouts and the loggers,
the sunsets and the rain, the streak of rugged independence
and contrariness that so many display, and the generosity
and warmth that make Westerners so welcoming to
all.

Valdy, born Valdemar Horsdal
in Ottawa, has been part of the fabric of Canadian pop and
folk music for years. A man with a thousand friends, from
Newfoundland to Vancouver Island to Texas to New Zealand,
he's a songwriter who catches the small but telling moments
that make up life.

Remembered for Play Me a Rock
and Roll Song, his bitter-sweet memory of finding himself, a
relaxed and amiable story-teller, facing a rambunctious
audience at the Aldergrove Rock Festival circa 1968, Valdy
has sold almost half a million copies of his 16 CDs, albums
and 8-tracks, and has received two Juno Awards (from a total
of seven Juno nominations), and four Gold albums to his
credit.

Along the way, he's taken his
music to a dozen different countries, from Denmark to
Australia, been an invited performer for five years in a row
at the prestigious Kerrville Festival in Texas, and even
played a lead role in an episode of The
Beachcombers.

Today, he's based on Salt
Spring Island, where he lives with his wife Kathleen, two
dogs and two large cats (the three grown-up "kids" are all
now living in the southern mainland of British
Columbia).

**

Gary Fjellgaard has been
described as a "national treasure" and one writer summed up
his music this way: "It is so rich that his art is free of
bitterness, whining, self-pity, and manufactured pathos. He
is the poet of the extravagantly good side of the human
spirit; breathtakingly humane and compassionate."

Like Valdy, Fjellgaard came to
the Gulf Islands (he lives with his wife on Gabriola Island)
well into his 25-year career. The island's peaceful calm
(not to mention the view from his living room window) can
make it difficult for him to leave. It is not only a haven
from the road, and a different geography than the one he
knew growing up in Saskatchewan, but a place to write the
sort of songs that lovingly recall the past, take an
affectionate view of the present and look optimistically
into the future.

He has a stubborn streak,
which is why he's never changed his Norwegian name so people
who don't know him could spell and pronounce it properly;
now nearly everyone knows it's pronounced Fell-Gard. As a
songwriter, he's a storyteller - and the stories he tells
come from his two decades in the logging industry, his
annual stints as a trail-riding cowboy, and his travels back
and forth across Canada.

His reputation has been earned
in the country music field, and if his songs bear little
resemblance to the "hot new country" that fills the airwaves
today, he has had more than his share of successes - and has
a shelf-full of awards to prove it.

Together, Valdy and Gary
Fjellgaard are a near-perfect team. The songs they've
written for Contenders touch their common ground with the
familiarity and warmth only old friends can share. They are
both experienced entertainers who know how to earn the
respect of their audiences, and deliver shows, night after
night, that send people home with smiles and the feeling
that they've experienced something special and
heartwarming.

The pair are in the midst of a
national tour to support Contenders, and to bring the songs
to audiences across the country. No spotlights. No stacks of
heavy-duty speakers and power amplifiers. No all-star backup
band. Just two guys, two guitars, and two dozen songs or
more that tell where they've been, where they are and where
they're going.

A new decade really needs the
old verities more than ever before, and these contenders
prove the point.

Valdy
W/ Doug 'n' Doug

48 years ago, I played in a
trio called Sweet Honey Mead, with Douglas K. Rhodes and
Douglas E. Rhodes.

In 1988 we did a weekend at Moby's,
our first trio gig in nearly 30 years. Doug the Elder is one
of the respected drummers on Saltspring Island, and one of
the island's best carpenters as well (accolade). Doug the
Reverend is playing these days with Victoria's big band, the
Belvedere Broadcasters, as well as several jazz
configurations on sax, bass, and keyboards; he sings very
well, and is restoring and repairing some of the Victoria
area's aging and abused pianos. We boogied, and will
probably do it again.